Halloween 2011 & Anniversaries

I’ll start this post by saying that Friday night, the 4th, I renewed my domain for another 2 years :)! I usually only renew for a year at a time, but…I had a coupon, heh. 2 years for $16? Can’t beat that.

Pixydust.net will officially be 10 years old on November 16th. I can’t believe it! Even though I slowed down a bit in recent years with blogging I’m really glad I never let the domain go ♥.

I left off on October 29th. Mom and I packed snacks for the kiddos (grapes, Doritos, pretzels, pears, waters) and we got in the car to find a park to go to. I figured the one on Daffodil would be packed, I forgot about the one on Daffodil that’s closer to the house, so we went to the one on Nolana since we were going to Walmart afterwards. It’s a small park, but it was empty except for a dad and his little boy and toddler girl. Mom took a walk and I took turns with the girls, “catching them” at the end of the slides. Jaylen hung out mostly with Emily and Eenan did his teenage thing and watched videos on his phone and listened to music. It’s so…gosh, I can’t even explain it. Weird, shocking nervewracking? Heh, I can’t explain it. It’s just amazing that I have a 12-year-old boy and he’s becoming this little teenager. He has his moments, but he really has matured in the past year ♥.

Emily made friends with the little blonde-curled toddler girl :). She loves “babies”. She wants to befriend all the little kids she sees :).

The kids had their snacks and then we packed up and went to Walmart. Eenan and I got down to pick the pumpkins. Of course we wouldn’t find very attractive ones as it was 2 days before Halloween, heh. We finally found two big ones that weren’t too wilty. They didn’t have the medium sized ones in stock at all, but we found the only bag of tiny ones they had. The girls and Eenan wanted to paint those, and Jaylen wanted to carve one. We took an extra big one in case Jorgie, Justin or Nick wanted to carve another. They’d just carved some earlier that day. We got a carving kit and the few groceries we’d need for dinner and went home since we were expecting Jorge’s family :). We’d planned a movie night outside on the porch on the projector. A cheesy movie that wouldn’t really scare the kids. “Killer Clowns from Outer Space” was the movie of choice, heh.

I got home and made some chili. Everyone got here and I served everyone dinner while my babe and Javi got the movie on the screen. Briana and the boys brought with them the pumpkins they’d carved and displayed them on the porch ledge and lit a pumpkin spice scented candle in each. It smelled like Autumn ♥. When everyone finished eating, the adults grabbed lawn chairs and the kids got a spot on the exercise mats Jorge put on the floor for them. We got each kid a blanket, Jorge brought out several bowls of popcorn and Briana brought cookies. The kids were surprisingly into the movie!

Alaethia politely reminded me every-so-often that I had promised they’d paint their pumpkins. I waited till the movie was about half way and then I got the box of paints out.

The movie finished shortly after and then the boys started getting everything ready to carve their pumpkins.

Jorge’s family left a little while after and we sat outside with the kiddos while they degutted the pumpkins. The girls went inside with Mom since it started to get chillier. The boys each slowly went back inside until only Justin was left carving a pumpkin, but he didn’t mind. I told my love it was a great night for Abuelita chocolate…and he made some for us !

It was great :). I got sleepy right after that and went inside to watch TV and crashed out. I woke up a while later, I can’t remember why now, but I went outside and saw my babe had strung the lights up with all the kids’ pumpkins. It looked so nice!

We sat outside recounting moments of that great day. I felt so blessed . It truly felt like Halloween and fall and family :).

I can’t remember much from the next morning (Jorge and I are trying to remember right now, heh). We remember our traditional Sunday omelet. Eenan wanted one too, so I made him one even though all the kids had eaten :). And here’s where we’re drawing a blank, up until I texted Briana so everyone could come over for lunch and cupcakes. I’d promised Javi strawberry cheesecake cookies, so I was making those, too. Briana texts back that they’re in Mission and on their way. Oops! I was just starting with the Mummy Dogs, but I figured I’d have enough time to do everything.

Everyone got here and the kids played and everyone lounged around. The first batch of Mummies came out and they were a hit, even with the adults, heh.

I started on the strawberry cheesecake cookies and realized I didn’t have white chocolate chips. I let everyone know I’d be right back, took Emily with me because she wanted to tag a long and headed to Family Dollar. Emily had fallen asleep, so I lugged her inside and lo and behold: no white chocolate chips. Grr.

I go to Target next since it’s nearby and go straight to the baking section. That was the fastest trip to Target of my life. I didn’t allow myself to get distracted :P.

I start baking the cookies and the first dozen comes out. There were none left by the time I finished putting the next batch in. Javi really liked them, hehe.

We only got to have cookies since the family needed to go. It was so fun though, that whole weekend. I took my kiddos to La Joya later that evening and on the way back I saw a shooting star! Hadn’t seen one of those in a while!

When I got back Jorge asked, “Do you want to pick something up for dinner, Babe? You’ve been in the kitchen all day.” I thought it was a great idea. We got Church’s :). We all ate and then I did stuff around the site, like adding a “Like” button. I’d really like to get a new layout up by my 10th anniversary, but you know how that goes!

It was Halloween the next day. I had agreed to let Emily spend Halloween over there since I had them last year. I was trying my hardest to be fair and civil, but it really bothered me that my kiddos weren’t going to be here with me this year .

That morning at work went by quickly. We’re having to wrap things up for this next event. I was going to munch on stuff at work for lunch since my stomach felt weird but Michelle told me to accompany her and we’d share a Palenque Bowl from Palenque Chicken. OMG. It was so good, heh.

I got a call from the kids’ school that afternoon around 3:45 that poor Alaethia was still in the front office. She missed the bus. Jaylen was on it, and she wasn’t. Of course, nobody wanted to take blame for it but I had nice “I told you so’s” to share with Mario and his mother. THAT’S why I wasn’t ok with my poor baby taking the bus, as much as they say SHE wants to go. I’m just happy they didn’t put her on a different bus :(. Sonia went for her eventually (again, if she could go, I don’t know why she can’t do it all the time!)

I went to HEB to pick up sushi stuff. My babe was kinda down about not spending Halloween with the kiddos, too, so we figured we’d have a movie and sushi night ♥.

As I was rolling the sushi, Mario shows up with the kiddos. I was so happy :*).

That was nice of him. I was surprised, really, and I appreciated it :D. Almost made up for my baby girl being left at school for 30 minutes. Almost. Not quite.

We ate dinner and then Jorge and I got comfy on the sofa to watch TV…and crashed out immediately!! That’s how we spent our Halloween, buaha!

The Annual Banquet was the next day. I got all my stuff ready and took it with me so I could change at work. Darryl “the Moose” Johnston, former player for the Dallas Cowboys, was the speaker so we were dressing in Cowboys jerseys and t-shirts and jeans. I don’t really go for anyone in football and wasn’t about to spend $60 on a jersey, but I got a cute t-shirt and I was thrilled about wearing jeans :).

I met my love at Old Navy for work since he was going to go with me and he needed jeans. We found them really quickly (30% off, too!) and then I took him to lunch at Palenque Chicken, heh. It was so good and inexpensive, $12 for both of us! It’s so nice to just unwind with him during lunch :).

I stayed till 5 that day and covered the front desk since Rosie and everyone needed to go home to change. I got to change and be in jeans at work, heh. I had a few things to lug with me and went to the Convention Center to meet everyone. I got sent back a while later since they forgot a bottle of wine, and since we’d be selling roses for a fundraiser and had them in this awful 5-gallon bucket, I found a nice black satin tablecloth to cover it with.

My babe was running late, and when he finally got there they were going to separate us. Neither of us was too happy with that idea, so he went to chill out with his work buddies. I’m glad he did. I would have felt even more guilty that he got dressed up and everything =\.

We sold roses later on. I was kinda annoyed thinking I had to do it on my own, but another co-worker and the boss’ daughter did it, too. I actually sold most of my roses until they called me to do something else. We got to eat (wasn’t too happy about it, hotdogs and burgers, blah) and I didn’t see the nachos or pretzels so I didn’t get any LOL. I woulda been much happier with the latter!

I ended up being moved to the silent auction and once that was done we cleaned up, went back to work and unloaded and THEN I could come home. My babe was still a little upset about the whole thing, and I started getting upset and quickly went into panic mode because it was exactly a year to the hour since The Big Drama happened last year. I was actually a lot…calmer than I thought I would be on that night, but I owe it to keeping busy all day. I didn’t have time to “think” too much. But we were okay and we were together and in our soft bed and comfy sheets ♥. All was wonderful again by the next morning :).

I was so stressed out at work. One sponsor dropped because they’re closing their business. Another changed marketing directors and the new one didn’t include our event on their calendar. OMG I was so mad. And THEN, another company wanted to drop out too because my contact is just…awful. I knew she was going to be trouble as soon as I started dealing with her. I was about to lose my shit and texted Jorge to tell him how stressed I was. He asked when I was going to lunch and told me he’d meet me. He surprised me by showing up at my work ! We drove to Espi’s together and I just spewed everything out, everything that happened. He listened, offered advice and listened some more. And then he told me to forget everything and just enjoy lunch, so I did :). I was so grateful that he went out of his way to make me feel better.

I reluctantly went back to work. I wished Jorge could stay with me, or I could go with him, heh. But the day got better; my boss dealt with the sponsor and I got about 3 new exhibitors.

My Emily was brought to me 😀 and I made us dinner. We all got in our PJ’s and went to Walmart to get goodies and catfood, heh. We browsed around and then went home and watched XFactor. Emily fell asleep on my lap and Jorge took her to her bedroom where she stayed all night ♥. We finished watching the show and sat together enjoying each other’s company. We both expressed how we’d like every day to be like that :).

I couldn’t help but think to myself how much better this November 2nd was compared to last year. And we both agreed: it’s only going to get better :).